“Sleep quality, duration and consistency are associated with

better academic performances in students”

Research Outline:
1. Abstract

2. Introduction
- 2.1 Importance and Overview
- 2.2 Citation

3. Methods
- 3.1 Participants
- 3.2 Procedure
- 3.3 Material

4. Results
- 4.1 Bedtime and wake-up times
- 4.2 sleep duration, quality, and consistency concerning academic performance
- 4.3 Variance of assessment performance accounted for by sleep measures
- 4.4 Gender Difference

5. Discussion
- 5.1 the significance and contribution of the results to existing research

6. Conclusion
- summary of objectives

1. Abstract
Although numerous survey studies have reported connections between sleep and
cognitive function, there remains a lack of quantitative data using objective measures to
directly assess the association between sleep and academic performance. In this study,
wearable activity trackers were distributed to 100 students in an introductory college
chemistry class (88 of whom completed the study), allowing for multiple sleep measures
to be correlated with in-class performance on quizzes and midterm examinations.
Overall, better quality, longer duration, and greater consistency of sleep correlated with
better grades. However, there was no relation between sleep measures on a single night
before a test and test performance; instead, sleep duration and quality for the month
and the week before a test correlated with better grades. Sleep measures accounted for
nearly 25% of the variance in academic performance. These findings provide
quantitative, objective evidence that better quality, longer duration, and greater
consistency of sleep are strongly associated with better academic performance in
college. Gender differences are discussed.

Citation: Okano, K., Kaczmarczyk, J.R., Dave, N. et al. Sleep quality, duration, and consistency
are associated with better academic performance in college students. no Sci. Learn. 4, 16
(2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-019-0055-z

2. Introduction
2.1 Importance & Overview
Sleep is thought to play a crucial and specific role in memory consolidation. Although the exact
mechanisms behind the relationship between sleep, memory, and neuro-plasticity are yet
unknown, the general understanding is that specific synaptic connections that were active
during awake periods are strengthened during sleep, allowing for the consolidation of memory,
and inactive synaptic connections are weakened. Thus, sleep provides an essential function for
memory consolidation (allowing us to remember what has been studied), which in turn is
critical for successful academic performance.

The relationship between sleep and cognitive function has been a topic of interest for over a
century. Well-controlled sleep studies conducted with healthy adults have shown that better
sleep is associated with a myriad of superior cognitive functions, including better learning and
memory. These effects have been found to extend beyond the laboratory setting such that self-
reported sleep measures from students in the comfort of their own homes have also been
found to be associated with academic performance.

Generally, sleep is associated with academic performance in school. Sleep deficit has been
associated with a lack of concentration and attention during class. While a few studies report
null effects, most studies looking at the effects of sleep quality and duration on academic
performance have linked longer and better-quality sleep with better academic performance
such as school grades and study effort. Similarly, sleep inconsistency plays a part in academic
performance. Sleep inconsistency (sometimes called “social jet lag”) is defined by inconsistency
in sleep schedule and/or duration from day to day. It is typically seen in the form of sleep debt
during weekdays followed by oversleeping on weekends. Sleep inconsistency tends to be
greatest in adolescents and young adults who stay up late but are constrained by strict morning
schedules. Adolescents who experience greater sleep inconsistency perform worse in school.

3. Methods

3.1 Participants

One hundred volunteers (47 females) were selected from a subset of students who volunteered
among 370 students enrolled in Introduction to Solid State Chemistry at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology to participate in the study. Participants were informed of the study and
gave written consent obtained by the guidelines of and approved by the MIT Committee on the
Use of Humans as Experimental Subjects. Due to limitations in funding, we only had access to
100 Fitbit devices and could not enroll all students who volunteered; consequently, the first 100
participants to volunteer were selected. All participants were gifted a wearable activity tracker
after the study in exchange for their participation. Seven participants were excluded from the
analysis because they failed to wear their activity tracker for more than 80% of the semester,
three participants were excluded because they lost their wearable activity tracker, and another
two participants were excluded because they completed less than 75% of the assessments in
the class. Of the 88 participants who completed the study (45 females), 85 were freshmen, one
was a junior, and two were seniors (mean age = 18.19 years).

3.2 Procedure

Participants were asked to wear an activity tracker for the entire duration of the semester
without going below 80% usage each week. If 80% or more usage was not maintained, warning
emails were sent at the end of that respective week. Participants were asked to return the
device if they dipped below 80% using more than three out of the 14 weeks of the semester.
The average usage rate at the end of the semester for the 88 participants who completed the
study was 89.4% (SD = 5.5%). The missing data appeared to be at random and were deleted
before data analysis. As part of a separate research question, 22 of the 88 participants joined an
intense cardiovascular exercise class for which they received separate physical education
credits. These students performed similarly to the other 67 participants in terms of final class
grade (t (88) = 1.57, p = 0.12), exercise amount (total amount of moderately and very active
minutes on the wearable device) (t (88) = 0.59, p = 0.56), sleep amount (t (88) = 0.3, p = 0.77),
and sleep quality (t (88) = 0.14, p = 0.9), so they were included in all of the analyses.
3.3 Materials

Participants’ activities were tracked using a Fitbit Charge HR. Data from the device were
recorded as follows: heart rate every 5 min; steps taken, distance traveled, floors climbed,
calories burned and activity level measurements every 15 min; resting heart rate daily; and
sleep duration and quality for every instance of sleep throughout the day. Sleep quality was
determined using Fitbit’s proprietary algorithm that produces a value from 0 (poor quality) to
10 (good quality).

4. Results
4.1 Bedtime and wake-up times
On average, students went to bed at 1:54 a.m. (Median = 1:47 a.m., Standard Deviation (SD) of
all bedtime samples = 2 h 11 min, SD of mean bedtime per participant = 1 h) and woke up at
9:17 a.m. (Median = 9:12 a.m., SD of all wake-up time samples = 2 h 2 min; SD of mean wake-up
time per participant = 54 min). The data were confirmed to have Gaussian distribution using the
Shapiro–Wilks normality test. We conducted an ANOVA with the overall score (sum of all grade-
relevant quizzes and exams—see “Procedure”) as the dependent variable and bedtime (before
or after median) and wake-up time (before or after median) as the independent variables. We
found the main effect of bedtime (F (1, 82) = 6.45, p = 0.01), such that participants who went to
bed before median bedtime had significantly higher overall scores (X = 77.25%, SD = 13.71%)
compared with participants who went to bed after median bedtime (X = 70.68%, SD = 11.01%).
We also found the main effect of wake-up time (F (1, 82) = 6.43, p = 0.01), such that participants
who woke up before median wake-up time had significantly higher overall scores (X = 78.28%,
SD = 9.33%) compared with participants who woke up after median wake-up time (X = 69.63%,
SD = 14.38%), but found no interaction between bedtime and wake-up time (F (1, 82) = 0.66, p 
= 0.42).

A Pearson’s product-moment correlation between average bedtime and overall score revealed
a significant and negative correlation (r (86) = −0.45, p < 0.0001), such that earlier average
bedtime was associated with a higher overall score. There was a significant and negative
correlation between average wake-up time and overall score (r (86) = −0.35, p < 0.001), such
that earlier average wake-up time was associated with a higher overall score. There was also a
significant and positive correlation between average bedtime and average wake-up time (r (86) 
= 0.68, p < 0.0001), such that students who went to bed earlier tended to also wake up earlier.

4.2 Sleep duration, quality, and consistency concerning academic performance

Overall, the mean duration of sleep for participants throughout the entire semester was 7 h 8 
min (SD of all sleep samples = 1 h 48 min, SD of mean sleep duration per participant = 41 min).
There was a significant positive correlation between mean sleep duration throughout the
semester (sleep duration) and overall score (r (86) = 0.38, p < 0.0005), indicating that a greater
amount of sleep was associated with a higher overall score (Fig. 1a). Similarly, there was a
significant positive correlation between mean sleep quality throughout the semester (Sleep
Quality) and Overall Score (r (86) = 0.44, p < 0.00005). Sleep inconsistency was defined for each
participant as the standard deviation of the participant’s daily sleep duration in minutes so that
a larger standard deviation indicated greater sleep inconsistency. There was a significant
negative correlation between sleep inconsistency and overall score (r (86) = −0.36, p < 0.001),
indicating that the greater inconsistency in sleep duration was associated with a lower overall
score (Fig. 1b).

4.3 Variance of assessment performance accounted for by sleep measures

To calculate how much of the variance in assessment performance was accounted for by the
sleep measures, we conducted a stepwise regression on the overall score using three
regressors: sleep duration, sleep quality, and sleep inconsistency. The relative importance of
each variable was calculated using the reclaim package in R48 to understand the individual
regressor’s contribution to the model, which is not always clear from the breakdown of
model R2 when regressors are correlated. We found a significant regression (F (3,84) = 8.95, p 
= .00003), with an R2 of 0.24. Students predicted overall score was equal to 77.48 + 0.21 (sleep
duration) + 19.59 (Sleep Quality) – 0.45 (sleep inconsistency). While sleep inconsistency was the
only significant individual predictor of overall score (p = 0.03) in this analysis, we found that
24.44% of the variance was explained by the three regressors. The relative importance of these
metrics was 7.16% sleep duration, 9.68% sleep quality, and 7.6% sleep inconsistency.

4.4 Gender Difference

Females had better Sleep Quality (t (88) = 2.63, p = 0.01), and less sleep inconsistency (t (88) = 
2.18, p = 0.03) throughout the semester compared with males, but the two groups experienced
no significant difference in sleep duration (t (88) = 1.03, p = 0.3). Sleep duration and sleep
quality were significantly correlated in both males (r (41) = 0.85, p < 0.00001) and females
(r (43) = 0.64, p < 0.00001), but this correlation was stronger in males (Z = −2.25, p = 0.02)
suggesting that it may be more important for males to get a long-duration sleep to get good
quality sleep. In addition, sleep inconsistency and sleep quality were significantly negatively
correlated in males (r (41) = −0.51, p = 0.0005) but not in females (r (43) = 0.29, p > 0.05),
suggesting that it may be more important for males to stick to a regular daily sleep schedule to
get good quality sleep.

Females scored higher on overall scores compared with males (t (88) = −2.48, p = 0.01), but a
one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) revealed that females and males did not perform
significantly different in the overall score when controlling for Sleep Quality, F (1, 85) = 2.22, p = 
0.14. Sleep inconsistency and overall score were negatively correlated in males (r (41) = 
−0.44, p = 0.003) but not in females (r (43) = −0.13, p = 0.39), suggesting that it is important for
males to stick to a regular sleep schedule to perform well in academic performance but less so
for females. No other gender differences were detected between other sleep measures and
overall scores.

5. Discussion

5.1 the significance and contribution of the results to existing research

This study found that longer sleep duration, better sleep quality, and greater sleep consistency
were associated with better academic performance. Multiple linear regression revealed that
these three sleep measures accounted for 24.44% of the variance in overall grade performance.
Thus, there was a substantial association between sleep and academic performance. The
present results correlating overall sleep quality and duration with academic performance are
well aligned with previous studies on the role of sleep on cognitive performance. Similarly, this
study complements the two linked studies that found longer sleep duration during the week
before final exams and consistent sleep duration five days before a final assignment enhanced
students’ performance. The present study, however, significantly extends our understanding of
the relation between sleep and academic performance by the use of multiple objective
measures of sleep throughout an entire semester and academic assessments completed along
the way.

Conclusion
6.1 Summary of Objectives
The present study provides new insights into the timing of the relationship between sleep and
academic performance. Unlike a prior study, we did not find that sleep duration the night
before an exam was associated with better test performance. Instead , we found that both
longer sleep duration and better sleep quality over the full month before a midterm were more
associated with better test performance. Rather than the night before a quiz or exam, it may be
more important to sleep well for the duration of the time when the topics tested was taught.
These findings imply that, at least in the context of an academic assessment, the role of sleep is
crucial during the time the content itself is learned, and simply getting good sleep the night
before may not be as helpful. The outcome that better “content-relevant sleep” leads to
improved performance is supported by previous controlled studies on the role of sleep in
memory consolidation.

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